Among ever-married respondents in the General Social Survey (1972–2024), the share who reported ever having divorced differed by religious group and survey decade. The weighted chart shows reported divorce rising from the 1970s through later decades for Catholics, Protestants, and respondents reporting another religion. Among respondents with no religious affiliation, the rate peaked in the 1990s and then declined.
Unweighted logistic regression results confirmed that divorce history varied by religion, Wald χ²(3) = 425.09, p < .001, and decade, Wald χ²(5) = 140.18, p < .001. The religion-by-decade interaction was also significant, Wald χ²(15) = 42.28, p < .001, meaning religious-group differences were not the same in every decade.
In the 2020s, Protestants had a higher estimated rate of ever having divorced (31.7%) than respondents with no religious affiliation (25.1%). That difference was statistically significant after Bonferroni adjustment for the six pairwise religious-group comparisons within the decade (p < .001). Protestants also had a higher rate than Catholics (19.6%) and respondents reporting another religion (20.3%) in the 2020s (both adjusted p < .001).
The chart percentages are weighted; the significance tests use unweighted data. The regression included 45,445 respondents with complete data.
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